Taking these arguments seriously, however, threatens to put us on a
second slippery slope (in addition to the one leading to altruistic destitution):
How far can the empirical debunking of human moral nature go? If
science tells me that I love my children more than other children only
because they share my genes (Hamilton, 1964), should I feel uneasy about
loving them extra? If science tells me that I am nice to other people only
because a disposition to be nice ultimately helped my ancestors spread
their genes (Trivers, 1971), should I stop being nice to people? If I care
about myself only because I am biologically programmed to carry my genes
into the future, should I stop caring about myself? It seems that one who
is unwilling to act on human tendencies that have amoral evolutionary
causes is ultimately unwilling to be human. Where does one draw the line
between correcting the nearsightedness of human moral nature and obliterating
it completely?
This, I believe, is among the most fundamental moral questions we face
in an age of growing scientific self-knowledge, and I will not attempt to
address it here. Elsewhere I argue that consequentialist principles, while
not true, provide the best available standard for public decision making
and for determining which aspects of human nature it is reasonable to try
to change and which ones we would be wise to leave alone (Greene, 2002;
Greene & Cohen, 2004).
In Greene’s 2002 Ph.D. thesis, he defends consequentialism but not very strongly:
We’re just looking for a
practical guideline, not an eternal moral code that handles fantasy cases as well
as real ones or that tells us which among our reasons for action are
philosophically privileged.
Unfortunately, for the purpose of building FAI, we are looking for an “eternal moral code”.
ETA: I’m having trouble finding where Greene addresses the issue of how consequentialism handles this “slippery slope” problem. Can anyone point me to a page number, or perhaps have independent arguments for why consequentialism is less vulnerable to “growing scientific self-knowledge” than deontology?
I want to point out these concluding paragraphs from Greene’s “The secret joke of Kant’s soul”:
In Greene’s 2002 Ph.D. thesis, he defends consequentialism but not very strongly:
Unfortunately, for the purpose of building FAI, we are looking for an “eternal moral code”.
ETA: I’m having trouble finding where Greene addresses the issue of how consequentialism handles this “slippery slope” problem. Can anyone point me to a page number, or perhaps have independent arguments for why consequentialism is less vulnerable to “growing scientific self-knowledge” than deontology?
The 2004 paper with Cohen is here. I’m not sure if he addresses this issue anywhere else; perhaps he will in his 2012 book.